


Helena

by apparitionism



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Bering & Wells Holiday Gift Exchange, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 05:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: In the grand tradition of jumpstarting the Christmas season before Halloween, here’s a tale I wrote as a present for taoduck in 2015’s Bering & Wells Gift Exchange. Taoduck noted a preference for comedy over drama, so I took that and ran with it in (what I hope is) a sweet (but is really more completely ridiculous) direction. Assumptions for the purposes of holiday silliness: most of season 4, and all of season 5, never happened; H.G. is sort of an agent but also runs around doing errands for the Regents; and Myka and H.G. have a thing going on—a thing about which Myka, in her Myka way, might sometimes feel a little insecure. Anyway, it’s Christmas at the Warehouse, so you know something freaky’s likely to ensue...





	Helena

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taoduck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taoduck/gifts).



Myka holding the door open for too long: that was Claudia’s first clue.

“Close the door!” Pete roared over his shoulder at her. “It’s negative zero degrees out there!”

Her second clue was that Myka didn’t start explaining to Pete that “negative zero degrees” didn’t make any sense. Instead, Myka just stood there holding the door open for another second. Then she closed it, very gently.

Her third clue: when she said “Hey Myka!”, Myka didn’t exactly… look up. Well, no, that was wrong, because she actually _was_ looking up, at a point on the wall a little higher—maybe five inches higher—than her own head.

“Hm?” Myka eventually said, and then she did look in Claudia’s direction.

Now, Claudia wasn’t the Caretaker yet. She was still very much in-training. But three clues that an agent wasn’t herself? Well, to one very perceptive Caretaker-in-training, that meant… okay, she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but given that Pete and Myka had just finished their bout of Christmas-Eve inventory, and that they, plus a Caretaker-in-training, were the only people who were even going to be around for the next week, she thought it was probably a pretty good idea to figure out exactly what disaster—and it had to be a disaster, because duh, Christmas—those clues pointed to.

So it was definitely interrogation time. Claudia put on her best no-nonsense-just-like-Mrs.-Frederic attitude and asked, “You okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Myka said. “Helena’s fine too.”

“Say what?”

“I said, Helena’s fine too. It’s so nice of you to ask.”

“Um. Myka. Not for nothing, but did you forget she’s on her supersecret Regent mission? The one that’s supposed to last till next weekend?”

Myka looked at that spot up on the wall again. Then she looked back at Claudia. “Helena is standing right here.”

Claudia groaned, “Oh god, did she finally figure out how to turn invisible? H.G., hollaback, wouldya?”

She waited, Myka waited, and into the silence Pete, who’d come back into the hallway, said, “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Neither did I,” Claudia had to admit. “Maybe she’s inaudible too? If you can hear me, H.G., pick something up!”

Claudia looked around. Pete did too. Nothing moved, except for Myka: she crossed her arms at them and shook her head.

“Is she a ghost?” Pete tried. “A ghost that only Myka can see?”

“I don’t see how that would be a surprise of any kind,” Claudia said.

“Helena is certainly not a ghost,” Myka informed them.

“Okay. You can absolutely see her, right?”

“Of course I can see her!” But she did that thing where she looked up too high again.

Pete followed her eyes, and he gasped, “Is she floating?”

“Of course not.”

“Is she _flying_?” he gasped louder.

“Pete, don’t be silly.”

This was all a little too… well, not weird; Claudia knew that nothing Warehouse-related was ever too weird. But it seemed awfully… personal. _Specific_. “Myka’s the only one who can see her. Maybe Myka’s imagining her. Maybe she misses her so much, she’s having some kind of lovey-dovey hallucination.”

“I am not having a hallucination of any kind. Helena is not a hallucination. You’re not a hallucination, are you?” she asked the spot on the wall.

Claudia turned to Pete. “Why is this happening? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! Not this time! Myka told me to scram and quit bugging her, so I did! I went and did my inventory, and then we came home!”

“Let’s pretend I believe you. Does that mean this is just normal Christmas crazy?” Claudia shook her head. “I _hate_ Christmas. I particularly hate it when I have to hang around and _deal with_ the normal Christmas crazy.”

“Scrooge,” Pete accused.

“Wow, that was original.”

“Grinch.”

“Try harder.”

“Voldar.”

“Better, but still not—”

“I hate to hear you two arguing,” Myka interrupted. “We should all sit down and have a drink together. Helena, would you like a drink?” She held out an arm in front of her. “No, no, after you.” Myka went into the living room alone. Or not alone?

“This is just creepy,” Pete said.

“I have an idea. I might have a little something artifacty that could help us.”

“An artifact here at home? I’m telling.”

“I’m just, you know, investigating a few items in a very Caretaker-y way. Don’t worry; nothing’s dangerous. For example, I have in my bag right here Kim Kardashian’s first camera-equipped cell phone.”

“What does it do? Make your lips all pouty in pictures?”

“Not far off. It shows you what you _think_ you look like, rather than the reality.” She waited, and when Pete just looked at her without getting it, she said, “Hey, Myka, why don’t you take a holiday selfie of you and… Helena.”

“What a fine idea!” Myka said.

Pete said, “Ooh. That _is_ a good idea.”

Myka took the photo. She regarded the screen with a small smile—smaller, Claudia thought, than she usually used for H.G. “Oh, do you see that?” Myka said. “She looks just wonderful.”

She turned the phone around to show the photo to Claudia and Pete.

“Okay,” Claudia said. “Here’s what I think we can conclude, pretty definitively, from this selfie: Myka’s been whammied.”

“She looks so pretty,” Myka said.

“That’s not H.G.,” Pete said.

“I know that, Pete,” Claudia said.

“So glossy,” Myka said.

“That’s not a _person_ ,” Pete said.

“I know that too,” Claudia said.

“So fluffy,” Myka said.

“That’s a rabbit,” Pete said.

“I know it’s a rabbit, Pete,” Claudia said.

Myka just looked at the photo, that same small smile on her face.

“Is it her but in a rabbit _suit_?” Pete asked.

“Now what,” Myka said, “would be the point of Helena wearing a rabbit suit?”

Claudia said, “That’s the most reasonable question I’ve heard since you guys got home. But also… that doesn’t look like somebody wearing a rabbit suit. That looks really… rabbity. _Real_ -ly rabbity. Insanely real-ly rabbity.”

Myka looked up at that spot again. “I think it’s a lovely photo of you, Helena.” Then she laughed. It wasn’t Myka’s regular laugh; like her smile, it was… quieter. “Well, thank you. I believe it _is_ also a fine picture of me.”

Elbowing Claudia, Pete said, “Do you think that’s part of H.G.’s supersecret Regent mission? Turning into an invisible rabbit that only Myka knows is there?”

“You never know with the Regents. I think you better call your mom.”

Pete called his mom. “Hey, funny question for you,” he said. “If I say invisible rabbit, do you think of H.G.? No? Okay… so what’s the supersecret mission H.G.’s on, if it’s _not_ turning into one of those?” He turned to Claudia. “She won’t say. On account of it being supersecret, but also because it’s somebody else’s thingy and she doesn’t know the details. She says she could find out, but it’d take a while.” He turned back to the phone. “Yeah, Mom, I’m sorry I’m here too but, you know, duty calls.”

Claudia watched Myka watch thin air. She’d never seen anybody really _look at_ air before. “This is just a little bit alarming. On a lot of levels.” She squinted up at the spot where Myka kept putting her eyes. Nothing, not even a whisker. “Alarming,” she repeated.

Myka reached out and patted Claudia on the shoulder. “Don’t be alarmed, Claudia. She stares that way at everybody. It’s her way.”

“Is it?” Well, when in doubt—when in complete confusion—why not just ask? “Myka, why do you think you’re walking around with a rabbit you’re calling Helena?”

“Helena’s her name,” Myka said. Matter-of-fact. Like she talked about giant invisible rabbits every day.

“Okay. How do you know that?”

Myka smiled that little less-than smile again, and she said, “It was an interesting coincidence. Before, when we were walking through the comedy section—you know the comedy section, right? And I’d just told Pete to get himself far, far away from me, because he… I just felt we’d both be happier that way. Anyway, I was there and I heard this voice saying ‘Hello, Myka.’ Well, I turned around, and there was this big six-foot rabbit leaning up against a shelf. I wasn’t honestly surprised because, well, it’s the Warehouse. Naturally I went over to chat with her. And she said to me, she said, ‘Pete was acting even more childish than usual just now. Or could I be mistaken?’ Of course she was not mistaken. I think the world and all of Pete, but he was being ridiculous. We talked like that for a while and then I said to her, ‘You have the advantage on me. You know my name and I don’t know yours.’ And right back at me she said, ‘What name do you like?’ Well, I didn’t even have to think twice about that. Helena’s always been my favorite name.”

“Has it,” Claudia said.

“So I said to her, I said, ‘Helena.’ And this is the interesting thing about the whole thing: she said, ‘What a coincidence, my name happens to be Helena.’”

Pretty far out, even for a whammy. Claudia said, “Okeydokey. I would personally like for all of us to go to the Warehouse now. For purposes of research, and also containment.”

“I have no objection to that, not if Helena doesn’t mind. And I’ve found her to be generally agreeable.”

“Now I _know_ it isn’t H.G.,” Pete said.

****

At the Warehouse, in the office, Myka took a long time determining where “Helena” wanted to sit. Where she’d be most comfortable. And when she’d determined that, she sat down next to “her”—they’d decided on a bench that Claudia didn’t think she’d ever seen Myka go near—and said, “Claudia, Pete, we’re enjoying ourselves so much here. Won’t you join us?”

“In a minute, Mykes,” Pete said. “Little busy trying to figure out a whammy situation.”

“Who got whammied?”

“That’s part of the situation,” he told her. “Let you know in a minute, okay?”

Myka nodded amiably.

Claudia said, “Here’s what I get for giant bunnies: first you got your Donnie Darko doomsday business, which I don’t think is what’s happening.” She scrolled down. “Aha. This looks better. ‘Pooka. From old Celtic mythology. A fairy spirit in animal form. Always very large. The pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature. Very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and…’ And what?” She scrolled further. “‘And how are you, Claudia and Pete?’ God, this is annoying. Listen, rabbit, get out of my database! Quit making Myka all weird, and quit bugging me!”

Myka piped up, “I don’t see why you’re upset with Helena. She didn’t do anything.”

“Myka _is_ all weird,” Pete said, as if he were just realizing it. “She’s acting all… I don’t know. Like she’s sweeter.”

“She didn’t need to be sweeter,” Claudia said. She read more: “‘The pooka comes to social outcasts, people who feel lonely or isolated.’ Freaky. Apparently she didn’t even have to touch anything: it picked up on how she was feeling. Oh, it’s like that dorkball Sallah fortune-telling guy—ask him a question, and he just starts telling you you’re gonna die. Don’t have to touch a thing. For this, you basically feel sad. Feel sad and lonely near where the thing is, and the pooka appears to make you feel better.”

“I guess I’m not really seeing the problem then,” Pete said.

“You’re likely to want to keep feeling better. And apparently if you keep feeling better for too long? You’ve got a pooka forever.”

“So you’re saying that if we don’t snap Myka out of this fast enough, she’d walk around talking to a six-foot-tall rabbit—”

“Six feet three and a half inches,” Myka interrupted. “Let’s stick to the facts.”

“—for the rest of her life?” At Claudia’s nod, he said, “I don’t think that’s going to make her feel all that much better.”

“Well, she won’t be lonely. Apparently.”

“The real Helena will. So what’s the artifact?”

“It’s a hat. With two holes in it.”

“A hat with two holes in it,” Pete repeated.

“For ears. They used it as a prop for a play and a movie with a pooka in it. A supposedly fictional pooka. See? Harvey.”

Pete clapped his hand against his forehead. “Ohmygod _Harvey_. Jimmy Stewart, walking around with his best friend, a big ol’ invisible rabbit! I knew I’d regret not watching that when I had the chance! Little life lesson for you, Claud: never don’t watch a movie when you have the chance.”

“Never don’t do stuff. Gotcha. I guess.”

“So what are we waiting for? Never don’t do stuff! Let’s go bag that hat!”

“Yeah, that’s a problem. It doesn’t work like that. The hat isn’t exactly an artifact: it doesn’t, like, generate the pooka. It just sort of… calls him. Or in this case, her. It’s actually really like that Sallah guy. Myka’s going to have to be reminded that it was temporary, what she was feeling. Like how I had to quit believing all those deathtastic fortunes, or eventually they’d come true.”

“Well how are we supposed to do that? Why’s she lonely anyway? She’s got _us!_ ”

“Dude. You know as well as I do, she’s not lonely for _us_.”

“I say we try bagging it anyway.”

“I’m game. Hey, Myka, how about we take a walk?”

Myka stood and held out her hand to the empty bench. “Helena, would you like to take a walk?” Claudia watched her gaze rise; obviously, “Helena” was standing up. Up and up. She really was six feet three and a half inches tall, this nonexistent rabbit. “She thinks a walk would be refreshing.”

“Man I hope so,” Pete said quietly.

****

A hat with two holes in it sat on the shelf exactly where it was supposed to. Claudia looked around. “Do you see a rabbit? Because I don’t.”

“Nope. Guess we’re not lonely. Anyhow, if this works, maybe we can go home and watch the Jimmy Stewart movie that actually goes with this time of year.”

“Just so you don’t go anywhere near that brush thingy again.”

“Deal. It’s way better watching it than living it.”

They bagged it. Nothing happened. Myka kept looking at “Helena.”

Pete whispered, “I say we goo _her_.”

“It’s true that this pooka business hasn’t happened to anybody since the Warehouse developed full gooing capacity. Okay. Let’s go for it.”

They gooed Myka. She stood there quietly, _sweetly_ for it. Then she looked up at her six-feet-three-and-a-half-inch friend.

“That was not a success,” Claudia said to Pete.

“No,” Pete agreed.

Myka shook her head at them. “I’m not sure _that_ was called for. Gooing me _and_ Helena? You practically dyed her fur purple… oh, but Helena, don’t worry. It’s a very becoming shade.” She paused. “Why, you’re right; we _should_ try it again for Easter.”

“Back to the drawing board,” Claudia sighed.

“You said remind her it’s temporary, right? Then lemme give that a shot: hey, Myka, remember H.G.? Good-looking lady who did some time for being a supervillain?”

“I believe I do,” Myka said. “She’s very nice.”

“She’s not really very nice at all, but okay. Do you remember that you two are… close?”

“Close friends, yes.”

“I don’t mean close friends.”

“Then I’m not sure I follow.”

“See, you two are involved.”

“With?”

“Each other.”

“Well, if you say so. I’m not sure I understand, but you’re probably right, Pete.”

“Claud, I’m tapping out. That last part is the freakiest thing I’ve ever heard her say.”

Claudia scowled.  “Tapping in isn’t high on my list, but… Myka. You and H.G. Seriously. You love her; she loves you.”

Myka considered this for a second or two, and Claudia felt a wild surge of hope… but then Myka patted the air next to her and said, “Well of course. Friends love each other. Friendship is wonderful.”

Pete stage-whispered, “Do we have any video we could show her? I’m not saying straight-up sex tape, but I think it might help.”

“First, ew,” Claudia said. “Second, we’re trying to tell Myka something she for whatever reason doesn’t want to hear, and that’s hard enough when she’s unwhammied… you know what I think we need? I think we need somebody she’s more likely to listen to. And I think we need to hurry, because at some point it’s gonna kick into permanent, this liking being sweeter, liking being—”

“Pleasant,” Myka told her. “I recommend pleasant.”

“Right. Pleasant. The file said that in the play and the movie, the plan is to give Jimmy Stewart drugs to shock him back to reality, so he won’t see the rabbit. They decide not to do that, because he’s, well, pleasant. And they don’t want to make him not-pleasant. Drugs probably aren’t gonna work on a whammy… but I think Myka needs reality. I think she likes reality. And I personally would miss reality!Myka, who can be touchy sometimes but also very cool. And I’m pretty sure H.G. would miss her too. And would not appreciate threesomes with a six-foot-tall rabbit.”

“Six feet, three and a half inches,” Myka said again. “Let’s—”

“Stick to the facts,” Claudia and Pete chorused.

Pete said, “So we need real H.G.”

“Exactly. The question now is, how to get H.G. here when we have no idea where she is.”

“We need a really big magnet!” Pete shouted. “Sorry, that was dumb.”

“We need a tractor beam,” Claudia volleyed back. “Except we don’t know where to point it, so that’s dumb too.”

“We need an _H.G._ tractor beam. One that finds her no matter where you point it.”

“Or for some stupid Regent to just tell us where she is. Uh, no offense to your mom.”

“It’s okay,” Pete assured her. “There’s lots of other Regents. Really stupid ones.”

And then it came to Claudia: “I got it: Mariah Carey.”

“Mariah Carey’s a Regent?”

“Maybe. I mean I wouldn’t be totally surprised, but… no. What I mean is, that song. Her Christmas song.”

“I love that song.”

“I don’t, but who cares. I have a plan. Here’s the thing: I’ve spent a lot of time in the music section. And do you know what we have?” Pete shook his head. “We’ve got Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer.” Pete gave a second head-shake, so she went on, “He composed and orchestrated that song on that synthesizer. There’s a lot of Christmas in that thing.”

Pete put on his thinking face. “I have two problems with your plan. First: it’s not a plan. Second: it doesn’t involve an H.G. tractor beam, which I was honestly hoping you were gonna say Mariah Carey had invented.”

“Oh, but see, it _is_ a plan, and it _does_ involve an H.G. tractor beam. What happens is, you play the song on the synthesizer, and you get what you want—or I guess _who_ you want—for Christmas. So all we have to do is get Myka to play the song, and boom.”

“I have two new problems with your plan. First: Myka sucks at playing the piano. Second: She doesn’t want H.G. for Christmas. She just wants to hang out with her PNHBFF.”

“I get the BFF part,” Claudia said. “But PNH?”

“Pooka Named Helena.”

“PNHBFFWYLION. Why do you want to cut the legs out from under my plan? What did my plan ever do to you?” She muttered, “I thought it was a good plan.”

“It was a great plan. It was so great, I think we should still do it. But in reverse.”

“Keep talking…”

“Instead of an artifact that pulls H.G. here because _Myka_ loves _her_ , what we do is, we find one that tractor-beams her here because _she_ loves _Myka_. Right? There’s gotta be something that does that.”

And there was. It took them a while to find it—Myka and “Helena” had time to wash the goo off, and Myka had a whole discussion with “Helena” about her thoughts on the pros and cons of blow-drying one’s fur versus letting it air dry—mostly because it was a smaller artifact, a gentle one that had nothing to do with anybody famous. “It’s a little photo from World War I, a soldier,” Claudia said. Pete looked over her shoulder at the screen. “He told his wife that whenever she missed him, she should look at the photo and think about how much he loved her, how she was the love of his life, and that that would be what brought him home. Turns out it was. A little more literally than he probably thought, but that’s poetry for you.” She read on. “And so it works only when the love of somebody’s life holds it.”

“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Pete said.

“Should work on them then, right?”

So Claudia proposed another walk, to which Myka and “Helena” happily agreed.

“This is a lovely aisle,” Myka commented. “Helena, isn’t this a lovely aisle? Claudia, Pete, don’t you think it’s lovely?”

“Best aisle ever,” Pete said quickly.

“It’s awesome,” Claudia said. “Myka, would you do me a favor?”

“Of course, Claudia. I’d be happy to do you a favor.”

“If you could maybe hold this little picture for a minute?”

“Certainly. He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?”

“I guess. Pete, do you see anything? Any, uh, non-giant-bunny artifact-y appearances?”

“Not yet. Does it work like that? Or is H.G. just gonna be all ‘for some reason I think I better get on a plane’? Because then we might need an artifact that speeds up planes.”

“You read the exact same info I did, okay?”

“You thought I was reading that? I was looking at the picture.”

“Sometimes I understand how reality!Myka feels,” Claudia grumbled. She sighed, but her sigh turned into a high pitched squeal as an extremely artifact-y appearance occurred: the space on the non-“Helena” side of Myka was empty—well, of course both sides were technically empty—but then Claudia blinked and the non-“Helena” space wasn’t empty anymore, because H.G. was standing there wearing what looked like an honest-to-god cat-burglar outfit: black bodysuit, black boots, black gloves, and to top it all off, a black balaclava from which peeked a pale strip consisting of her eyes and the bridge of her nose. She looked at the Warehouse floor beneath her feet, then at her own hands, and then, finally, at Claudia, who shouted, “H.G.! Thank god you’re not a six-foot-tall rabbit!”

“I heartily concur,” H.G. said.

Myka said, mildly, “Six feet three and a half inches. Let’s stick to the facts.”

“Not precisely the ‘welcome home’ I might have anticipated. Is there some reason Myka is gazing fixedly at the wall instead of noting that I am here? Also—and I hesitate to bring this up, but I feel it might be important—why am I in fact here?”

“You look like you were committing a robbery or something,” Claudia said.

“That is because I was committing a robbery. Or something. My questions, however, remain unanswered.”

Claudia and Pete shot each other guilty glances.

Which H.G. saw, and she said, not calmly at all, “Pete, what did you do?”

“Ha! For once, not my fault. For once, your fault! Wait—not ‘for once your fault.’ Lots of stuff is your fault.”

“I don’t see how anything could possibly be my fault. I’ve been away for four days.”

Claudia said, “That’s why it’s your fault. Myka missed you. She was lonely.”

“So lonely that she decided to forget me?”

“That’s surprisingly close to the truth.” She told H.G. about Myka being weird at first, about the selfie and the rabbit—no, the _pooka_ —about their attempts at bagging and gooing, and then Pete jumped in and tried to explain how Mariah Carey was and wasn’t involved, and magnets and tractor beams, and how Myka was _obviously_ the love of H.G.’s life, until finally H.G. waved her hands and said, “Stop! What I am gathering from all of this nonsense is that your plan of last resort—before throwing your hands in the air in surrender and committing Myka to an asylum—is that I will somehow persuade her to choose me over… myself?”

“Not exactly,” Claudia said. “Just over a really tall rabbit with the same name as you. Easy, right?”

“Of course. No trouble at all. And when I have accomplished this, I will introduce both you and Pete to the business end of a blunt instrument.”

Claudia nodded. “Totally. Get Myka back and then whatever mayhem afterward, that’s your call. Cool. Just do it. Just fricking do it. And I’m guessing you’re gonna want to try it without the ski mask.”

H.G.’s hair, emerging from the balaclava, was staticky—like some amazing seaweed waving in an ocean right above her head. Claudia’s first impulse was to laugh, but she figured if she did that, the blunt-instrument introductions were likely to start sooner rather than later. And then she was glad she hadn’t laughed, because she realized that the expression on H.G.’s face was every bit as wrecked as her hair was. “I’m sorry, H.G.,” she said. “We didn’t know what else to do.”

“I see that,” H.G. said, softer. “If you would be so kind as to give us some privacy?”

Both Claudia and Pete assured her that that would be no problem. Then they raced for the nearest security camera feed to watch. “So we can step in if anything goes wrong,” Claudia said, just to have said something like that out loud. But it was mostly so they could watch and listen. So they could cross their fingers and watch and listen.

****

H.G. started with a simple “Hello Myka.”

Myka said, “Hello.” Pleasantly.

“I understand you have a new friend,” H.G. said.

“No… she’s not new. She’s very old.”

“So she and I may have that in common. Would you introduce me?”

“Of course. Helena, this is… H.G. Wait. I mean Helena. That’s…”

“How interesting. Her name is Helena as well?”

“Her name.” Myka looked up at the air, then back to H.G. “What a coincidence.”

“I suppose it is. Claudia told me that you said ‘Helena’ has always been your favorite name.”

“I feel that it has.”

“Why is that, do you suppose? Might it have something to do with… me?”

Pete coughed “ego!” into his hands.

“It isn’t ego if it’s true,” Claudia told him. Under her breath, she said, “C’mon, H.G., it’s _shock_ her back to reality, not _hint_ her back.”

Then H.G. said, “Would you mind asking her to give us a moment to greet each other properly?”

“I’m so sorry,” Myka said, and she sounded genuinely regretful, “I didn’t shake your hand, did I?”

“That was not what I had in mind. Haven’t you missed me?” She took a step toward Myka.

Myka looked for one second like she might step forward too… but then she looked up. Then she took a step back. “Maybe. I know I was lonely.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But now I have Helena. She says she’ll do anything for me. She promises never to leave me alone.”

H.G. nodded. “I see why that might be appealing. I can’t make such a promise, of course.”

Claudia couldn’t help herself; she yelped, “Just tell her what she wants to hear!”

“You said the idea was to remind her of reality. H.G.’s keeping it pretty real,” Pete said, and Claudia had to agree.

“I can’t make such a promise,” H.G. repeated. “But then again, neither can you.”

“Of course I can,” Myka told her.

“You can make it, but you can’t keep it.”

“I am a woman of my word.”

“Are you? You seem to be breaking a promise right now, one you made to me.”

“What promise?”

“You said that whenever we are together, we will be _together_.”

“I did?”

Claudia had never been so happy to see Myka look confused.

H.G. continued, “In fact, the fact that you still have not greeted me properly makes _me_ feel quite lonely. As opposed to other times when we have… interacted.”

“Other times…”

“Do you remember Tamalpais?”

“You… the grappler… we were flying…”

“We were. I did not feel at all lonely then. Did you?”

“No, I felt—”

“And I remember a certain restaurant basement in Hong Kong. Wells and Bering—”

“Bering and Wells.”

“Exactly. And then of course what happened after that, once the imminent… _situation_ was resolved.”

“What happened… oh. _Oh._ ” Myka’s eyebrows rose for what Claudia was pretty sure was the first time since “Helena” had walked into the B&B.

“Indeed. Oh. Said a bit more forcefully in the original circumstance, but even so. I can’t imagine that you felt alone then.”

Now Pete coughed “sextape!” He elbowed Claudia. “Basically. Toldya. Even if she just talks her through it.”

Claudia looked at H.G., who had somehow managed to keep from spooking Myka even as she sidled closer and closer to her with every word she said. “I think H.G.’s done with talking.”

And _wow_ , was H.G. ever done with talking. She didn’t say one more word: instead, she grabbed Myka and kissed her in about six different ways, all at the same time; Claudia was blushing like crazy, face absolutely on fire—just like that kiss was on fire—and she was probably imagining it, because of course she had to be imagining it, but there might have been a giant rabbit standing right next to H.G. and Myka, looking pretty pink herself.

Suddenly the rabbit, imaginary or not, was gone, and Claudia then understood that she was _really_ gone, because Myka reared back from the kiss after a minute, smiled her actual, huge, just-for-H.G. smile, then jumped back in for another six-different-ways kiss.

Claudia whistled. “I always figured HG was a good kisser, but seriously. She’s like the Serena Williams of lip action.”

“I didn’t so much get that,” Pete said. “That one time.”

“Maybe she wasn’t really, you know, leaning in.”

At that point, Myka and H.G. both leaned out. H.G. looked up at the security camera, raised her voice, and said “I believe it is safe for you to stop watching now.”

Claudia said, “She knows us way too well. Let’s scram before she remembers that blunt-instrument threat.”

“I dunno,” Pete said. “If we hang around, we might be able to get some footage for that sex tape.” Claudia started dragging him away as he protested, “Just in case this happens again! A nonartifacty backup plan! Something to keep on hand in case Myka has a sad in the freaky-bunny aisle again!”

****

Myka looked at Helena, her Helena, the real Helena, standing in front of her, here on Christmas Eve. “Hi,” she said.

“Hello to you,” Helena said. A small quaver in her voice concentrated its low vibration, making it even sweeter to Myka’s ears. “The real you.”

“I was me before. Just more… pleasant.” She could still feel that pleasantness as a smoothing, softening fog, a haze slowly dissipating from her awareness—but Helena’s face and voice were flashlight beams breaking through.

“I find _this_ you to be quite pleasant. But I had no idea you were also so… despondent. So much so that you would utilize—or perhaps, more accurately, call on—an artifact to relieve your loneliness.”

Myka had, in fact, been extremely tempted to utilize an artifact to relieve her loneliness. She’d almost let herself do that, for she had wanted nothing more than for Helena to be with her. She’d stopped herself, though, reminding herself that artifacts weren’t for personal gain... how ironic, then—or maybe just providential?—that a mere accident, her being in the wrong aisle at the wrong time, had ultimately caused Helena, now, to be with her. “I had the wrong thought in the wrong place. There should be a sign: ‘Don’t have negative thoughts in this aisle.’”

“And yet you did have the negative thoughts.”

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to do any of this, but it’s Christmas, and I missed you. Pete was goofing off, I told him to quit it, he said I was no fun, and I was thinking about being no fun and being alone and… lucky me, suddenly there was a six-foot-tall rabbit.”

“The rabbit was six feet three and a half inches tall. As I understand it, you were quite adamant on the point.” Helena smiled a small indulgent smile, but it, like her voice, quavered a bit.

Myka tried to bring things back to normal, tried to lighten both their moods by saying, “I like your height better. I’d hate to have to stand on tiptoe to kiss you.”

“You’d know how I feel, then. It’s a difficult maneuver.”

Helena demonstrated: on her tiptoes, she was actually slightly taller than Myka, and Myka found the alteration in kissing perspective to be far more than pleasant. “Don’t you want me to miss that when you’re gone?” Myka asked when Helena dropped back to the floor. She’d meant that to come out light too, but instead it was plaintive. Needy. _Enormously_ needy, and that was exactly what she was trying not to be, what she’d tried, every time Helena left, not to be.

“Of course I do. And you should know—though perhaps I have not made my feelings entirely clear, or you would not in turn have felt so abandoned—that I miss that greatly, ever so greatly, as well. I have no large lagomorphs to brandish as evidence, but Claudia and Pete did manage to bring me here based on the fact that… well, why mince words? The fact that you are the love of my life.”

“They did?” And then Myka registered what Helena had actually said. “I am?”

“You may have missed the fact that I arrived somewhat unexpectedly. Summoned by an artifact that draws a lover to the aforementioned love.” Helena said the words simply, but her eyes revealed a depth of emotion that even Myka, even with her doubts and fears and _she-is-H.G.-Wells-so-why-does-she-even-want-me-anyway_ qualms, could read.

Myka honestly didn’t know what to say in return—she knew Helena loved her, of course. Well, most days she was reasonably sure she knew that. But proof of love on such a grand scale? And proof of love _of_ such a grand scale? It seemed a miracle, a _Christmas_ miracle, to have this confirmation that Helena’s feelings could, could and did, match her own. “That’s quite a Christmas present you just gave me,” Myka said softly. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome… but I would like something in return. Shall I tell you what it is?”

“Whatever it is, I hope it involves getting you out of that cat-burglar outfit that I’m not going to ask about but rather just accept as an additional Christmas present.” Unwrap her like the endless wonder of a present she was, all not-quite-five-feet-seven-inches of her. Speaking of sticking to the facts. Facts that now included how much everybody loved everybody… Myka felt no more fog, but rather, now, a clear, sharp enormity of love that she might in the past have tried to contain, for fear of its seeming too much—to herself as well as to Helena.

But Helena now was gazing at Myka as if nothing could be too much, as if in fact nothing could ever be enough. “I believe that could be arranged. Further, I suggest we strive to make it as memorable as possible. Because what I would like from you is an assurance that you will not forget me when next you conjure a tall Celtic fairy creature.”

“It wasn’t forgetting, exactly. Everything just felt less… important. The bigger anything was for me, the smaller it started to seem. And you started to seem so very small.” She kissed Helena again, just to feel again how large, how important, how essential she really was. The kiss warmed and grew and grew until Myka was just barely able to pull away before it became too extreme for a Warehouse aisle—even one that Claudia and Pete were no longer watching. “Whenever you’re gone, I miss that. And today, maybe just because it’s almost Christmas, I missed that even more, and I wanted that even more, and I missed you even more, and I wanted you even more, and I almost—anyway, that’s what the rabbit took away, all the intensity, all the urgency, just bleeding out of everything. And our relationship does have its softer side—and there’s nothing wrong with that softer side—but intensity is kind of a defining feature.”

Helena kissed Myka again, another breath-stealing launch, and how anything as soft as Helena’s lips could manage at the same time to be so forceful, so compelling, Myka had no idea. She had had no idea, before this, that anyone’s kiss could be undeniable enough to remake her entire world, but now that she knew, she knew that she wanted this, and she wanted it forever. She was tempted to go ahead and let the kiss take its natural course, Warehouse aisle or not, but this time it was Helena’s turn to pull away. She said, “Intensity as a defining feature… I must say, love of my life, I believe I prefer it that way.”

_Love of my life_. “I prefer that too.”

****

Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer was exhausted. First, it had had to endure the touch of an incompetent pianist, whose clumsy plunking had been nearly intolerable… but Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer had at least not been activated by that ineptitude: the incompetent pianist had managed to hunt and peck only the first several notes of the required song before turning away while muttering “not for personal gain, not for personal gain.” Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer had sighed a small sliding scale of relief. But then, to the great and abiding disappointment of Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer, the Warehouse had decided that the incompetent pianist deserved a Christmas gift. This decision meant that Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer was indeed activated, and thus Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer found it necessary to engage in extensive negotiations with other artifacts. (Only the Warehouse itself understood the true nature of Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer: Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer did not itself collect and bestow persons-as-gifts, but rather marshaled resources so as to facilitate the timely arrival of said persons-as-gifts.) Maneuvering the incompetent pianist and the incompetent pianist’s “inventory partner” into the appropriate aisle to begin the process had required artifact diplomacy of a nature quite taxing, to say the least... as had every other step in the process of marshaling resources to facilitate the timely arrival of the object of the incompetent pianist’s affections as a Christmas gift. Of course, if the incompetent pianist had had greater faith in the object of her affections to begin with, she might have initially attempted to utilize an artifact such as the small soldier photograph and left Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer undisturbed to enjoy its Christmas Eve in peace… but apparently the Warehouse _also_ believed that the incompetent pianist needed to learn a variety of Christmas lessons regarding love, trust, and other matters.

Walter Afanasieff’s synthesizer intended to point out at the earliest possible opportunity that what the incompetent pianist needed far more desperately to learn was _how to play the piano_.

END

Note: I borrowed some dialogue from the  _Harvey_ screenplay, which was adapted ever-so-brilliantly by Mary Chase, Oscar Brodney, and Myles Connolly from Chase’s original play. See the movie if/when you have a chance. Also listen to the Mariah Carey song, which both Pete and I love. Never don’t do stuff.

**Author's Note:**

> original tumblr tags: too far off the rails?, I wrote most of this on airplanes, so you could blame it on the altitude, but of course the cabins were pressurized, whoops I guess the blame's on m, I swear I was not drinking, but there was this idea of wouldn't it be funny if..., and then there obviously had to be a story to go along with that thought, and this is what it turned out to be


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